RotRL (Anniversary Edition) -- APG classes vs Core Book only.

[Ualaa]

Our group still has a lot of Rappan Athuk to explore, so the next campaign is well into the future.
That said, a little preparation in advance does not hurt.

Initially, we were going to run with the Core Book only, as the other supplements were not around when the original adventure path came out.
One of the players wants to an Oracle, as he wants to be divine and spontaneous...

I'm curious, if I expand the classes to include those from the Advanced Player's Guide (Alchemist, Antipaladin, Cavalier, Inquisitor, Oracle, Summoner, and Witch) for additional variety, but beyond the class itself still restrict everything else to the Core Book (Feats, Items, Spells, etc), how well those classes will play.
Would an Oracle, with the class features detailed within APG, but otherwise restricted entirely to the Core book still function?

And I'm basically asking the same for the other APG classes... are any of them unplayable if Feats/Spells/Items etc are restricted to Core only?

[Kira_the_5th]

In theory, an Oracle would work just fine, but that's mostly due to the problem of Core being the most unbalanced book in PF. Really, the only class that wouldn't work out well from any of the books is probably the Gunslinger, if only because of the complete lack of loot for them. Again though, my main advice is "Don't restrict to only the Core book".

[CockroachTeaParty]

If you're using the Anniversary Edition, you'll find lots of stuff from the APG is already in there. Many NPCs received 'updates.' The penultimate boss fight is an oracle, for instance, and an early mini-boss is a witch. So there's nothing to 'worry' about, if you ask me.

[Ualaa]

We had read that with all the additional books, the challenge level went sharply downhill.
But that with core only, it was one of the harder adventure paths.

I don't mind if an opponent has whatever class.
We have all of the Paizo Books, Ultimate Psionics & Path of War, and Spheres of Power in our current game.
So access to content isn't so much the issue.

We do want a challenge.
But something that is winnable, given moderate optimization but also avoiding broken combinations.

[CockroachTeaParty]

Really, there's nothing in the APG that's going to make things any easier than what you have in Core. Clerics, Wizards, Sorcerers, Druids... they get pretty much all of their best toys in Core. You're less likely to see a true power spike by allowing the APG; if anything, they'll have to wind up spending more of their liquid currency on items better suited for their class that don't appear natively in the module (such as alchemists).

For what it's worth, I ran the Anniversary Edition mostly out-of-the-box, with a seasoned party of three people: a wizard, a sorcerer, and a paladin. They grabbed a cohort to help fill out the ranks a bit (a spiritualist from Occult Adventures). They did very well, but they wound up TPKing at the final battle.

With this in mind, often times all you have to do to up the challenge if things are getting too easy is to revise the enemy tactics slightly. All I did was change one spell on the final boss's spell list (and a Core spell, at that), and it wound up tipping the scales in the party's disfavor.

[Thealtruistorc]

We had read that with all the additional books, the challenge level went sharply downhill.
But that with core only, it was one of the harder adventure paths.

Honestly, I'm not sure how that would work given the presence of the three most powerful classes in the core rulebook. Granted, things like paragon surge, dazing spell, and the arcanist exist in other sourcebooks, but these do little to alter the fundamental hierarchy of how the classes interact (if anything, I would surmise that whomever you are quoting was simply having a difficult time with something unfamiliar, unaware that similarly powerful core options exist).

[Eldaran]

If you want a challenge, you're better off banning 9th level spellcasters than you are banning stuff outside core.

If you do go with allowing the APG classes, you should at least allow their class specific feats. Things like Extra Discovery make the Alchemist a lot more enjoyable to play.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Ualaa
Initially, we were going to run with the Core Book only, as the other supplements were not around when the original adventure path came out.
One of the players wants to an Oracle, as he wants to be divine and spontaneous...

I did just this in my last gaming group--I played an oracle in RotRL, using the CRB, APG, and a few other options by DM approval.

And that was the best campaign I've played in for years. I loved my oracle, and while he didn't exactly rock the damage output, he did manage to cover healing, lore, and miscellaneous divine casting.

So yes, an oracle will function perfectly well in RotRL. Orac with confidence. :smalltongue:

[Faily]

What our group has sometimes done to "challenge" ourselves is to roll random Race+Class combination (we did it for Shackled City, and had a blast! Dwarf-Paladin, Halfling-Swashbuckler, Half elf-Cleric, Gnome-Ranger). Core only will still make Cleric, Druid, and Wizard into the most powerful classes, and you're shutting off options for the non-casters, imo, but it will certainly provide more of a challenge to characters like the Fighter, Monk, Rogue, Barbarian, Ranger and Paladin by closing off options outside of Core.

[icefractal]

If power-level is your concern, there's no point going core-only - the difference between low-power Core and high-power Core is greater than anything the other books add. As with any published module, some parties are going to have an easier time than others, and adding/subtracting a few enemies to compensate is a good idea.

If it's a matter of complexity and you're just trying to have fewer books - most of the APG classes work without any additional support. The martial ones (Gunslinger and Cavalier) might be a bit under-supported without other books like Ultimate Combat, and I'm not sure about Alchemist, but Inquisitor / Oracle / Summoner / Witch should work fine I think.

[Sayt]

If you want to put a challenge on your players, I don't advise banning non-core. Wizard Cleric and Druid are still extremely strong choices and a lot of their strength resides within the Core Rulebook.

If you want your characters to be challenged, try putting restrictions on the available casting, for instance, no 9th level full casters. Warpriests and Inquisitors instead of Clerics, Magi and Alchemists instead of Wizards.

Roughly speaking, the top and the bottom of the power scale are in Core. Cutting splatbooks doesn't really raise or lower the bounds of power level, it narrows the available options and reduces the number of viable builds.

That's what I reckon, anyway

[Ualaa]

I assumed an alchemist would require either a portable lab, or access to a lab.
But wasn't sure if all of the other classes could function with only the core book, for spells/feats/equipment.


Thanks for the input on the power curve.
With most of it coming from the Core Rulebook, anyway.

We have one player who optimizes moderately, in that he reads a ton and makes decent decisions on his class.
But doesn't really like online guides or people saying take this or that.
He likes to make his own choices.
The last campaign he played a Sorcerer.
This campaign he's playing a Warder tank.
Next campaign won't be anything he's played previously.

We have another player who likes a combination of Aegis, Soulknife, and Two-Handed Fighter.
He likes to deal big numbers, has no care about his defense and is frequently 15 AC behind everyone else.
He's fine charging into the middle square, to be flanked by four rogues, because he gets a flank from that one square.
He's gone through a character every 2-3 sessions.
But occasionally plays a Psion (blaster), who unloads all his PP in the first fight of the day, and then grumbles that the party wants to continue for 3-5 more fights before resting.
The ratio is usually 3 melee to 1 psionic toon.

Those two are the 25+ year veterans.

Another player is in his 2nd campaign (Way of the Wicked and Rappan Athuk).
He's the one who wants to play the Oracle, and cover buffs plus heals for the next one.
He makes good decisions mostly, but sides with the reckless player more than the cautious player.
In this campaign he's been (we're doing Gestalt in Rappan Athuk) mostly Sorcerer, Summoner or Arcanist based guys, with the current one being mainly a Merciful Healer Cleric.

Our last guy is in his first campaign and likes the role of an archer who can scout and deal with traps.
He is in the process of learning the game, so not really sure what he'll want to play next.
In general he follows the lead of the veteran players, especially the guy who is currently playing the tank role.

[Florian]

@Ualaa:

It´s easy to see why the challenge level should _supposedly_ get easier with the newer classes.

Especially the high-Tier casters have a broader variety of actions available than their core counterparts and can, for all purposes, seem to act more in actual play.
In reality, they simple have a very moderate level of optimization already included, that kind of level that an even at least bit experienced player would also achieve on one of the CRB classes without even wasting a second thought on it.

For the rest of the question: That´s a bit more dependent on the actual class. The Oracle class uses the full cleric spell list (und most mechanics), so no need to add to that, the Witch class has a more restricted spell list, which also includes a lot of APG spells and will fall hard without those, and so on.

[upho]

Generally speaking, I absolutely agree with all previous posters regarding the poor balance of player options in the CRB. I mean, the book is a "Martial/Caster Disparity Hall of Infamy", including most of the sadly UP classes and crap options as well as most of the stupidly OP ones. Especially if used on its own, without any of the support/replacement options to help empower classes like the rogue, monk or fighter, it's a recipe for disaster in APs like RotRL which continue well into the higher levels. In contrast, most of the classes and many other PC options written wholly by Paizo in later material are generally a lot more "middle-of-the-road" power-wise IMO. Meaning most of those classes are in or closer to T3 than the CRB ones (if you're familiar with the Tier System for Classes (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5293.0)) and you can really tell this is the case from seeing them in an actual game IME. The same goes for DSP material, notably PoW/PoW:E (at least outside of the earliest levels and after the upcoming PoW errata) which provides the only T3 martials for PF, AFAIK.

That said, while allowing most Paizo and DSP options will help reduce the risks of the party going total Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit (https://youtu.be/zFuMpYTyRjw?list=RDzFuMpYTyRjw) (à la the classic cleric/fighter/rogue/wizard party), it of course doesn't necessarily increase the difficulty of the more mechanics-heavy challenges the party faces in RotRL. For that to actually happen, changes of a completely different nature than banning source books are required, along with a bit more DM work.

I'm DMing RotRL for a party of five (currently 10th level), though they've been various constellations of three or four in most parts of the AP so far, because Real LifeTM happens. When first reading up on the AP, IMO three things stood out in regards to mechanical balance if run in accordance with recommendations and if opponents are played to the full capacity of their abilities and personalities:
In relation to expected party level, there are huge differences between the easiest and the most deadly encounters and difficult challenges. For example, most parties are likely to waltz through a large majority combat encounters, while some will pose considerable risks of ending up in a TPK, and as experienced by Cockroach TeaParty, I think the last fight is actually likely to end up in a TPK (see spoiler below).
A very large majority of the challenges are too easy for a party of four at least somewhat decently built and played PCs.
The party is sometimes assumed to include PCs with access to rather specific powers, such as the ability to cast certain relatively high level spells, which may complicate matters that were seemingly never intended to be complicated (for better or worse). At the same time, quite a few challenges are made much easier or even trivialized by rather well-known, relatively accessible and commonly chosen PC abilities (especially certain spells from the CRB).

With these points and the above mentioned general risk of party imbalance in mind, I talked to the players and introduced the following house rules:
T3 power balance goal ("gentlemen's agreement" kinda deal).
All Paizo and DSP source books for PF allowed (other 3PP options, playtest material, 3.5e conversions, homebrew etc are also allowed on a case-by-case basis).
No spells above 3rd before character level 9, and no 7th or higher level spells at all (besides those potentially given as special rewards). PCs of full caster classes are offered setting-appropriate homebrew PrCs which slow down spell progression without reducing CL or any other important class features, designed largely according to the player's wishes and plans for his/her PC. Here's an example for the witch class (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?399287-Coven-Agent-a-T3-Witch-archetype-ish-PrC-with-ranged-maneuvers&p=18838424#post18838424), used by one of the PCs in my current game.
Reduced combat feat taxes, similar to these suggested house rules (http://theworldissquare.com/feat-taxes-in-pathfinder/).
Reduced immunity against/increased applicability of combat maneuvers in general, and grapple, trip, disarm and sunder in particular.
Starting at 3rd level to allow for more race variation and avoid the pretty awful rocket tag tendencies of the very first levels.

These have worked great for the purpose of party balance, making it a lot easier for me to put together appropriate challenges, and the players seem very happy with them. (But with very experienced and system-savvy players such as mine (in all cases except for one complete RPG noob), this doesn't make most of the challenges of RotRL much less easy, they just become about equally easy, on average, for everyone in the party. Which means I've so far re-designed pretty much every combat encounter and introduced several challenging personal plotlines intertwined with those of the AP, so far always in order to make the campaign more difficult and interesting considering the particular strengths, weaknesses and personalities of the PCs. This is still the case, even though the party is now two levels below the recommended and has less wealth than according to the CRB's WBL recommendations.)

Considering you have less experienced players in general, I recommend you first simply try using the above house rules (perhaps without the last point about starting level) and the AP as written. If it feels too easy, you can pretty easily up the ante simply by delaying level-ups and reducing treasure (just watch out so you don't unintentionally punish more item-dependent PCs by doing so). And if possible, try to carefully nudge the less experienced players towards going with more powerful classes, and vice versa.

Finally, I really recommend you read up on threads with other people's experiences of this AP, learning which challenges which may actually turn out too deadly for your party if run as written (see also spoiler below).

A high risk of a TPK is to be expected if you have your "average" 17th level party face a 20th level wizard armed to the teeth with stuff like time stop, wish, prismatic wall, several quickened spells, a greater quicken metamagic rod and many offensive spells with a DC between 30 and 33, in addition to a few quite durable henchmen. Especially if said wizard also knows quite a bit of the party's strengths and weaknesses, cannot be drawn out of his hiding place or caught by surprise, and can only be fought in a rather dangerous place the PCs are unfamiliar with. But this is unfortunately precisely what the RotRL final fight against Karzoug is.

And in case the party actually is comprised of at least somewhat optimized full casters or highly optimized lower tier classes, the outcome of this kind of fight will instead of course be pretty much decided by the initiative rolls.

I find this kind of encounter design kind of ignorant and/or lazy, as it increases the risks of ending up with a boring fight largely decided before it even properly got started, rather than promoting the kind of drawn-out and epic dramatic climax which appears to have been the intent. Needless to say, I'll make some pretty radical changes to this encounter, hopefully while also managing to preserve or even enhance the "wizard of godlike powers" flavor and rightfully arrogant personality of Karzoug.

In addition, IIRC the following opponents/encounters are potentially considerably more prone than others to cause multiple PC deaths (according to me and other players/DMs): Xanesha (at least for a party without flight), Lucretia (if not faced alone), Black Magga, and Arkrhyst.

I hope this helps!

[CockroachTeaParty]

Seconding upho's spoilers:


Yeah, Xanesha and Arkhryst are the Big Two before Karzoug. Both are extremely dicey battles. There's not a lot you can do about Xanesha other than hope your players get a bit lucky and are good tacticians. If you get far enough, you need to telegraph Arkhryst. He's very likely to get the jump on the party, and can wipe out half the party before they know what hit them. If you foreshadow him enough, hopefully the party will have some Resist Energy spells up at the very least.